Loretta Lynch: ‘Most effective response to terror is compassion’ (plus unity and love)

Loretta Lynch: ‘Most effective response to terror is compassion’ (plus unity and love)

One of the chief reasons Americans from every corner of society have been arming up in record numbers under the Obama administration is that Obama’s top officials are forever going out and saying things like this:

Attorney General Loretta Lynch said that love and compassion are the best responses to terrorism during remarks to the media in Orlando, Florida on Tuesday.

Lynch said the Department of Justice stood in solidarity with the LGBT community “in the light” following a Muslim terrorist’s massacre of 49 people at a gay nightclub last week.

“We stand with you to say that the good in this world far outweighs the evil, that our common humanity transcends our differences, and that our most effective response to terror and to hatred is compassion, it’s unity, and it’s love,” Lynch said. “We stand with you today as we grieve together, and long after the cameras are gone, we will continue to stand with you as we grow together in commitment, in solidarity, and in equality.”

Now, I’m not going to say what you think I am about this.  You think I’m going to say this is a weak and foolish response to terrorism.

But that would be a banal observation, unworthy of the incisive insight you expect from Liberty Unyielding.

Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?

No, what I’m going to say is, Obama’s officials sure do have a skewed view of “effective responses.”  When the problem is terror – 49 defenseless people shot to death and 53 injured in a bloody melee, by an Islamic extremist – the most effective response in their view is compassion.

Leaving aside the perplexing mechanics of addressing Islamic terrorism with “compassion,” we are left to wonder why, then, in the estimation of these same people, the most effective response to tax evasion is apparently bullets.

Bullets seem to be Obama’s idea of the most effective response to quite a few non-lethal, non-emergency problems that federal agencies may encounter, whether it’s the EPA, the Department of Education, the Department of Agriculture, the Railroad Retirement Board, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Office of Personnel Management, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, or the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.  (See here and here as well, for more on these and some of the 60-odd other agencies arming themselves for maximum ineffectiveness.)

I, personally, would rather experiment with compassion as a “most effective response” when the problem is disgruntled railroad retirees or the makers of possibly unsafe consumer products, than when the problem is terrorists with car bombs and grenade launchers.

But that’s just me.

It’s certainly worth pointing out the history of silly comments from Team Obama about responding to terrorism.  That history includes this gem from the ever-fertile Marie Harf – terrorists just need jobs – and Obama’s assertion last year that what ISIS needs is a good whuppin with “better ideas.”

It’s not that Obama isn’t onto something there.  Better, more compelling ideas are needed to put the fervor of wrong-headed ideologies to rest.  But notice the whole thought Obama expressed at the time (emphasis added):

Ideologies are not defeated with guns, they are defeated by better ideas and more attractive and more compelling vision.

So:  guns versus ideological terrorists who massacre people by the dozens in the most gruesome ways imaginable?  Ineffective.  Guns versus the innocent family members of an American citizen who may have misused federal education aid for students?  Critically necessary, especially for federal raids on their home at 6 o’clock in the morning.

I think we’re seeing a pattern here.

J.E. Dyer

J.E. Dyer

J.E. Dyer is a retired Naval Intelligence officer who lives in Southern California, blogging as The Optimistic Conservative for domestic tranquility and world peace. Her articles have appeared at Hot Air, Commentary’s Contentions, Patheos, The Daily Caller, The Jewish Press, and The Weekly Standard.

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